1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a switching device of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) constructed from Banyan network. More particularly, the present invention relates to a device designed to construct a switch network with a large capacity in which unit switches are modulized in a certain scale and installed in a three-dimensional structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the ATM switch network, some switch network constructed from Banyan network has been widely used. The ATM switch network needs capacity to provide the transmission rate of several hundreds Mb/s per port and, the switch network scale should become larger accordingly. However, the actual embodiment of large-scale Banyan network is quite difficult due to the following several hardware limitations, such as parts compliance in printed circuit board (PCB), PCB size, PCB connector pin number and number of connector, transmission rate per link and attenuation of signal. On this matter, among the exemplars of a contemporary practice are White (U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,540, Automatic Topology Monitor For Multi-Segment Local Area Network, Aug. 13, 1996) discussing an automatic topology monitor for multi-segment local area network, which includes segment monitor nodes which report the presence of new end nodes to a network manager node. Dobbins et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,509,123, Distributed Autonomous Object Architectures For Network Layer Routing, Apr. 16, 1996) discusses an object-oriented architecture for network layer routing which distributes function and system behavior into automomous router objects. Christensen et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,687, Method And System In A Local Area Network Switch For dynamically Changing Operating Modes, Feb. 13, 1996) discusses a local area network (LAN) switch having means for switching modes of operation in response to a rate at which frames having an error pass through such a LAN switch. Judd et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,251, Network Addressing, Nov. 7, 1995) discusses a network addressing scheme in which a message sent from a source node to a destination node includes a path address which defines the path over which the message should travel to reach the destination node. Norizuki et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,357,510, Apparatus And A Method For Supervising And Controlling ATM Traffic, Oct. 18, 1994) discusses an apparatus for supervising and controlling asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) traffic, and which collects traffic information. The apparatus comprises a cell detecting unit, an idle cell detecting unit, a cell counting unit, an idle cell counting unit, an idle cell rate detecting unit, and a control unit. From my study of these exemplars and of the prior art, I believe that there is a need for a more effective and improved switching device of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) constructed from Banyan network, as in the present invention.